Second in Line
by HecateA
Summary: It's hard not being someone's priority. Not being the person that's there for them before everybody else. Oneshot.


**Yes I know it's outrageous that I'm sitting here writing about a couple that I definitely don't ship when I have three weeks of ship weeks to get cracking on. I know. But someone on tumblr said that they wanted perachel angst so even though I'm about 75% sure that I don't have the competence to write Perachel, I thought I'd give it a go. **  
**Disclaimer: I don't own the characters.**  
**Dedication: I don't even know what this person's blog is, I'm sorry.**

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**Second in Line**

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Rachel was having what you could call a "difficult day". For starters, she'd totally played with fire by running off from her family on their "bonding" and "valuable" vacation. She'd definitely blown any remaining hope she had of returning to Goode High down the drain in favour of becoming a properly educated and Clariton educated lady. Her headaches had gotten a thousand times worst since she'd landed in New York and Chiron said it was probably all the magic in the air, but mostly it made her want to puke out everything she'd eaten in the last twelve years. And all of that would have been okay, right? She was doing it for a friend- for a friend who'd helped make sense of Rachel's world, who kept her company, who kept her informed about the world around her, who'd saved her life last summer, and who turned out to be a surprisingly good kisser. She was down with doing things like that to save Percy's butt.

But apparently nobody else was down with any of it.

Literally since she'd gotten to New York, demigods had just been crapping on her about this and that. _Why didn't you know that New York was engulfed in magical mist that would take down your helicopter- like, duh Rachel? _And, _if you're so great and prophetic, why didn't you tell my buddy to take two steps to the right before one of those giant blue dudes stepped on him? _Whatever, Rachel admitted that her entry and introduction to the demigod world wasn't exactly what you'd call "graceful", and that the kids around her had more than enough reasons to be stressed. They were mourning, scared, tired, dying, injured, abandoned, outnumbered in this great big war that they were only half-part of at the end of the day. That was the problem with the _demi _part of demigod, yes?

But _Percy?_

Why was this idiot ignoring her? What was he so engrossed in that he couldn't tell Rachel, couldn't spare a minute to talk to her about, wouldn't let him talk him down from? Suddenly she was hit with the realisation that this war he was involved in was so much bigger than he'd let on. She felt stupid for inviting him to tag along on her family's vacation. But the thing that topped all the other sucky ones was that Percy wouldn't even slowdown from his monster hunting and people saving and power napping to let Rachel have a decent conversation with him. To find out how he was doing and how she could help him, take care of him.

It took a while, but eventually Rachel realised why.

Because she wasn't first in line.

Because somebody had already taken Percy Jackson's well-being and basic safety into her own hands, and had the scars, shoulder-wounds, memories and heart-deep feelings to back it up.

And she was _not _about to let any of those things go.

This made Rachel second in line, but with someone as strong and brave and clever as Annabeth Chase in the first row… it was basically pointless. And she saw the way that Percy was looking back at her, this was far from one-sided. Whatever Annabeth had done for Percy, Percy had done for her. And this had been going on from years based on what she heard some sniffling and deeply traumatised children of Aphrodite gossiping about, in an attempt to cheer themselves up.

Right. Rachel should have gotten to Percy Jackson sooner.

But how _could _she? How could she have been there for as long as she'd have liked, they were from two different worlds. And Rachel _hated _that. She didn't want it. She and Percy could play the same stupid video games and make the exact same mistakes in math and freak out about the same cliché police crime dramas, so why in the world did they have to be so different? If they were close enough for Rachel to fall for him so quickly, how could he be so far away?

How could he be so far from second place?


End file.
